Real World Linux Showcases New Products, Strategies

TransGaming Technologies Launches New Face: Aclerex

May 1, 2003

Here in Toronto, the first Real World Linux conference is in full
swing despite the overblown threat of SARS. Some speakers have
canceled, and some of the exhibitors pulled out due to no-go orders
from their companies, but attendance was still good and many of the major players are here.

The focus here is Linux in business. It's a smaller show than what in
New York City or San Francisco, but that doesn't mean that nothing
interesting is happening. There are a number of product launches,
particularly from Canadian companies, and some European vendors that
are stretching into the North American market.

Ontario-based TransGaming Technologies (www.transgaming.com) is using
this event to launch a new face for their company. While TransGaming's
focus is providing an environment for playing Windows games on Linux
boxes, a number of their subscribers began attempting to run home and
business applications under TransGaming's WineX. These users
discovered that the programs ran under the gaming environment, or
almost ran, and so TransGaming began receiving queries for helping
various companies--including some from the Fortune 2000 set--to bring the
Windows applications they can't leave behind into the Linux world.

Aclerex (www.aclerex.com) doesn't necessarily rewrite the applications
from the ground up. If the source code is available, then this makes
their job easier, but they don't require it. As TransGaming, they had
to implement key Windows APIs, such as DCOM and RPC. With these two
issues already solved, TransGaming is well on its way toward being
able to port many Windows packages quickly and easily.

When it came time to do their first major project, a port of The Sims,
it took only eight weeks, with the longest part of the project being
the DRM (Digital Rights Management)--copy protection aspect. It only
took such a short time on the first project because Gavriel State,
TransGaming's and Aclerex's founder, was the principal force behind
the last push within Corel to port its Office applications to Linux.

Some might worry about the legal aspects of reverse engineering to
port the applications, but this isn't actually an issue. APIs are
published standards, so no reverse engineering is required. In fact, a
number of the programs Acelerx's clients want to have ported are their
own custom code: software that the company can't leave behind when
leaving the Windows world.

Acelerex isn't marketing products to end users. The porting issue is
far too complex, with too many variables, to offer a package that
could satisfy everyone's needs. Instead, they're simply sitting back
and letting those who need to have Windows software brought into the
Linux world come to them. This model serves the needs of those
companies who say, I'd like to move to Linux, but...